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Nathan Bedford Forrest
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Nathan Bedford Forrest
Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821 – October 29, 1877) was a general in the Army of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. After the war ended, Forrest was elected to lead the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan as its first and only Grand Wizard, though not a founding member, serving almost two years from the 1867 inception of his title, until his order to dissolve the organization in January 1869.
Before the Civil War, Forrest amassed substantial wealth as a horse and cattle trader, real estate broker, slave jail operator, interstate slave trader, and cotton plantation owner. In June 1861, shortly after the Civil War began with the splitting of the United States into the Union and the Confederacy, Forrest enlisted in the Confederate Army. Forrest became one of the few soldiers during the war to enlist as a private and be promoted to general without previous military training. An expert cavalry leader, Forrest was given command of a cavalry corps and established new doctrines for mobile forces, earning him the nickname "The Wizard of the Saddle." He used his cavalry troops as mounted infantry and often deployed artillery as the lead in battle, thus helping to "revolutionize cavalry tactics".
In April 1864, in what has been called "one of the bleakest, saddest events of American military history", troops under Forrest's command at the Battle of Fort Pillow massacred hundreds of surrendered Union Army troops, free blacks and Tennessean Southern Unionists. The slaughter, which is perhaps the most infamous application of the Confederate no-quarter policy for black combatants, was blamed on Forrest in many newspapers in the North, and the stories of the killings may have strengthened the Union's resolve to win the war. Forrest's level of responsibility for the massacre is still widely debated by historians.
Forrest joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1867, two years after the organization's founding, and was elected its first Grand Wizard. The group was a secretive network of dens across the post-war South, where politically active black people and their allies were threatened, assaulted and murdered. The Klan, with Forrest at the lead, suppressed the voting rights of blacks through violence and intimidation during the elections of 1868. In 1869, Forrest expressed disillusionment with the terrorist group's lack of discipline, and issued a letter ordering the dissolution of the Ku Klux Klan as well as the destruction of its costumes; he then withdrew from the organization. Forrest later denied being a Klan member, and in the 1870s twice made statements in support of racial harmony and black dignity. During the last years of his life, he served on the board of a railroad and farmed President's Island using convict labor. Forrest died of illness in 1877, at the age of 56.
Nathan Bedford Forrest was born July 13, 1821 to Miriam (Beck) and William Forrest, a poor settler family living in a secluded frontier cabin near the hamlet of Chapel Hill, Tennessee (then part of Bedford County, but now in Marshall County).
His father was of English descent, and while most of Nathan's biographers state that his mother was of Scotch-Irish descent, the Memphis Genealogical Society asserts that she, too, was of English descent.
He and his twin sister, Fanny, were the two eldest of 12 children. Their great-grandfather, Shadrach Forrest, moved between 1730 and 1740 from Virginia to North Carolina, where both his son (Bedford's grandfather) and grandson (Bedford's father) were born; they moved to Tennessee in 1806 and he died in Bedford, Tennessee the year before Nathan Bedford was born. Forrest's family lived in a log house (now preserved as the Nathan Bedford Forrest Boyhood Home) from 1830 to 1833. John Allan Wyeth, who served in an Alabama regiment under Forrest, described it as a one-room building with a loft and no windows.
William Forrest continued blacksmithing in Tennessee until 1834, when the family moved to Salem, Mississippi. When his father died in 1837, Nathan became the primary caretaker of the family at age 16. Forrest ventured into a business partnership with his uncle Jonathan Forrest in Hernando, Mississippi in 1841. His uncle was subsequently killed at the business in 1845 by the Matlock brothers during an argument. In retaliation, Bedford shot and killed two of them with his two-shot pistol and wounded two others with a borrowed knife thrown to him. One brother later served under Forrest's command, for a time, during the Civil War. Forrest's early business ventures included a livery stable, a stagecoach line, and a brickyard. He became well known as a Memphis speculator and Mississippi gambler.
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Nathan Bedford Forrest
Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821 – October 29, 1877) was a general in the Army of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. After the war ended, Forrest was elected to lead the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan as its first and only Grand Wizard, though not a founding member, serving almost two years from the 1867 inception of his title, until his order to dissolve the organization in January 1869.
Before the Civil War, Forrest amassed substantial wealth as a horse and cattle trader, real estate broker, slave jail operator, interstate slave trader, and cotton plantation owner. In June 1861, shortly after the Civil War began with the splitting of the United States into the Union and the Confederacy, Forrest enlisted in the Confederate Army. Forrest became one of the few soldiers during the war to enlist as a private and be promoted to general without previous military training. An expert cavalry leader, Forrest was given command of a cavalry corps and established new doctrines for mobile forces, earning him the nickname "The Wizard of the Saddle." He used his cavalry troops as mounted infantry and often deployed artillery as the lead in battle, thus helping to "revolutionize cavalry tactics".
In April 1864, in what has been called "one of the bleakest, saddest events of American military history", troops under Forrest's command at the Battle of Fort Pillow massacred hundreds of surrendered Union Army troops, free blacks and Tennessean Southern Unionists. The slaughter, which is perhaps the most infamous application of the Confederate no-quarter policy for black combatants, was blamed on Forrest in many newspapers in the North, and the stories of the killings may have strengthened the Union's resolve to win the war. Forrest's level of responsibility for the massacre is still widely debated by historians.
Forrest joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1867, two years after the organization's founding, and was elected its first Grand Wizard. The group was a secretive network of dens across the post-war South, where politically active black people and their allies were threatened, assaulted and murdered. The Klan, with Forrest at the lead, suppressed the voting rights of blacks through violence and intimidation during the elections of 1868. In 1869, Forrest expressed disillusionment with the terrorist group's lack of discipline, and issued a letter ordering the dissolution of the Ku Klux Klan as well as the destruction of its costumes; he then withdrew from the organization. Forrest later denied being a Klan member, and in the 1870s twice made statements in support of racial harmony and black dignity. During the last years of his life, he served on the board of a railroad and farmed President's Island using convict labor. Forrest died of illness in 1877, at the age of 56.
Nathan Bedford Forrest was born July 13, 1821 to Miriam (Beck) and William Forrest, a poor settler family living in a secluded frontier cabin near the hamlet of Chapel Hill, Tennessee (then part of Bedford County, but now in Marshall County).
His father was of English descent, and while most of Nathan's biographers state that his mother was of Scotch-Irish descent, the Memphis Genealogical Society asserts that she, too, was of English descent.
He and his twin sister, Fanny, were the two eldest of 12 children. Their great-grandfather, Shadrach Forrest, moved between 1730 and 1740 from Virginia to North Carolina, where both his son (Bedford's grandfather) and grandson (Bedford's father) were born; they moved to Tennessee in 1806 and he died in Bedford, Tennessee the year before Nathan Bedford was born. Forrest's family lived in a log house (now preserved as the Nathan Bedford Forrest Boyhood Home) from 1830 to 1833. John Allan Wyeth, who served in an Alabama regiment under Forrest, described it as a one-room building with a loft and no windows.
William Forrest continued blacksmithing in Tennessee until 1834, when the family moved to Salem, Mississippi. When his father died in 1837, Nathan became the primary caretaker of the family at age 16. Forrest ventured into a business partnership with his uncle Jonathan Forrest in Hernando, Mississippi in 1841. His uncle was subsequently killed at the business in 1845 by the Matlock brothers during an argument. In retaliation, Bedford shot and killed two of them with his two-shot pistol and wounded two others with a borrowed knife thrown to him. One brother later served under Forrest's command, for a time, during the Civil War. Forrest's early business ventures included a livery stable, a stagecoach line, and a brickyard. He became well known as a Memphis speculator and Mississippi gambler.
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